In response to an article by Nick Herbert in the FT dated 03/02/19
Nick Herbert is the guy that did an appalling job, almost by his own admission, in the referendum campaign. One can tell that he was a Remainer “on balance” rather than “by conviction” by this typical discourse.
That was the whole reason the Leave campaign won. They appeared to have conviction and listed all that was bad about the EU, and what could be gained by leaving, even if it was mostly untrue.
The Remain campaign under his leadership, however, felt it was necessary to say “although we don’t really want to be mixed up with all these foreigners we should stay because, on balance, we get a good deal”. They felt this approach was necessary because of the existential threat posed to the Conservative Party by UKIP and the need to appease
So he is now asking the readers of the FT to pressure the EU to help the Conservative Party to get a “deal” through for the same party political reasons. He misread things then and does so now. The idea that we face either “crashing out” or an unrealistic modification to a rejected plan is to deliberately ignore the other choices available if we give ourselves more time.
He has not explained why we can not ask the EU for an extension of Article 50 to get this right rather than this 11th hour rush into a dog’s breakfast!
